Yes, you read the synopsis right: the main, five-chapter story in Toomi Aoyama's single-volume book Stalemate is a romance between a guy and his older uncle. That's going to be an immediate turn off for some readers, and while I wish I could say that it isn't as off-putting as it sounds, the fact of the matter is that if incest isn't your romance trope, most of this book just isn't going to work for you. Largely this is because Chiharu, the older partner, is aware that falling for his nephew Shinichi isn't a good look, and while it is nice that Aoyama doesn't try to just sweep the problems under the rug with a shrug and a “but it's so cute!”, it's still fairly uncomfortable.

Mostly that's because it's not something that ever gets handwaved away, which feels a bit ironic. There's definitely something to be said for a work owning its problematic elements, though, and this certainly does that. Along with the clear acknowledgement that their blood relationship is a factor in why this forbidden love shouldn't happen, Chiharu is also uncomfortably aware that Shinichi is a high school third year to his thirty-year-old working adult. He's very conflicted, because he sees how important coming over to his house is to Shinichi, but he also can't in good conscience not say something about how it may not be the healthiest social option available to him. That this stems mostly from genuine concern for Shinichi's well-being is interesting, because it does indicate that Chiharu cares about him as a person rather than just romantically. (Shinichi is the more aggressive partner in pursuing a romantic relationship.) He's also somewhat baffled by Shinichi's apparent devotion to the game of chess, something that persists even after they've become a couple; Chiharu never quite realizes that for Shinichi, chess is a way of communicating without words. In each move on the board, Shinichi sees a parallel for his approach to Chiharu in real life, and while this could have been developed more (or better), it's still an interesting conceit for this five-chapter story to lean into.

It's also very much in line with the goofy short stories that end the volume, which are basically games played by Aoyama and her friends. They work because they're shorter than all of the other pieces in the book, and because there's something at least a little recognizable about them: when Aoyama and her friends (both fujoshi and not) get together, they end up anthropomorphizing virtually everything as BL couples. Numbers, trains, foods…you name it, they've got them divided up into seme and uke and have the storylines to match. It's the sort of silly thing that most people have, in some form, indulged in at some point (not necessarily the way Aoyama does), and while it does go on a bit too long, it ties in nicely enough with the chess metaphor in the main Stalemate storyline.

Of the other two pieces in the book, How to Get Along with a Cat is the strongest. In this story, a high school boy named Nakano wishes he could be a cat only to be granted cat ears and a tail that are invisible to most people. One of the few who can see them is Gohongi, who is largely regarded as the school thug. Much to Nakano's shock, it just turns out that Gohongi loves him some kitties, and he's desperate to pet Nakano's tail and ears. Unfortunately, he's really bad at it, so Nakano takes him by the hand and teaches him the finer points of how to interact with felines. It's cute and sweet without a whole lot of plot, but it doesn't need to do much beyond that to be enjoyable. The same can't quite be said about Holding Hands Together, the middle story, which also features a protagonist named Shinichi and stumbles a bit in its storytelling. The plot – Shinichi has the chance to reconnect with a distant cousin who was his best friend one summer of childhood – is simple enough but told in a confusing, meandering fashion, which sadly doesn't do it any real favors.

Stalemate is the most explicit of the stories in the volume, but none of them are particularly racy, with things implied rather than shown for the most part. The art isn't terrific, but it does the job, and it must be said that Aoyama draws some pretty cute cats in the one story that involves them. The only oddity in the translation is the decision to put U.S. dollar values in parentheses within the speech bubbles; an example is “seven million yen (70K USD)” in the first story. I understand the desire not to have footnotes, but I'm not sure that this is any less awkward in terms of conveying the dollar equivalent of yen.

While this isn't the strongest book MediaDo has released, it also isn't terrible. If you can get past the incest angle of the first story (and to a lesser degree the second) it's a perfectly fine mild BL title with some sweet and cute moments.